Airport Security

While I’m currently bed ridden with the plague, I’ve had a lot of time to stare at walls and painstakingly refresh Instagram every 5 minutes. But more importantly, I’ve been able to further ponder our disscusion from class about racial profiling. 

Especially in this day and age, racial profiling is extremely prevalent in airports. In security lines it is unfortunately more common to see a Muslim couple pulled aside for further inspection, rather than a white couple. In a debate between securityologist Bruce Schneier and critic of religion Sam Harris, about whether we should profile Muslims in airpoint security, Harris states “we know who the danger is, it ain’t old ranchers from Texas or pretty blondes from San Diego—it’s Muslims, so let’s focus airport security on them” (ACLU.org). Sadly, if we adopted this close minded and bigoted way of thinking, secrurity officals would overlook threats that come from all races and religion. 

In a New York Times article titled “Traveling While Muslim Complicates Air Travel”, by Michael T. Luongo, he interviews Nafees Syed a lawyer and writer in New York. Syed tells Luongo that she has to go “an extra hour earlier than anybody else [to the airport], because it’s not random checking”. In addition, she explains how she is often pulled aside “at security check-in for secondary screenings and pat-downs, the examiner feeling her head through the hijab.” The racial profiling done by security officers in airports is a byproduct of the views our society holds today. With such influences as the media, and even our own president, it is easy to unconsciously profile others because it is viewed as socially acceptable. The only way to stop racial profiling is to educate others on cultural differences, maybe then a trip to the airport won’t be as daunting to those of others religions/ethnicities.